Rites of Passage
by oncethrown
Summary: Prom POV's. One night, three view points. A rite of passage, an experiment in redemption, and a lesson in irony and absolution.
1. Rites of Passage

Let me be perfectly clear: Even though I don't always get him, and even though I sometimes want to bolt and padlock his closet doors and force him to just wear a damn T-shirt with some jeans and sneakers, and even though it might have taken me years to accept that he was never going to grow out of being the only kid around who wanted to have tea parties and streamers on his bike- I love my kid. I want him to be himself. I want him to be happy.

But it would have, hell, it'll always be, _easier_ to be Finn's father.

Finn is a lot like me when I was younger. I get Finn. I can imagine what Finn's life will be like. I can see the things that Finn and I are going to have in common.

Finn doesn't care about Prom. Finn wants to make his girlfriend happy and Prom is important to her. Finn wants to make his mom happy and she wants a couple pictures of her kid in a tuxedo.

Finn's gonna go to this thing and dance with his date, and maybe even get the cheesy crown. Maybe have a couple drinks at Puck's after party (which I still can't quite believe Carol and I agreed to let the boys go to and which I'm not totally sure Blaine's parent's know he's been invited to.)

Point is, he's going to get out of this with some fuzzy memories, some nice pictures, and a couple songs that make him feel nostalgic. And that's gonna be it. The most I have to worry about is that Finn'll over-do it at the after party. And I trust the kid not to do that. Finn will be fine and it won't be a big deal.

If Kurt is fine by the end of the night, it'll be a big deal. It'll be a goddamn victory. It'll be a moment when I can breathe easy, but still only for a little while.

I don't know what I should've done about this stupid dance. I want to beg him to just stay home, invite Mercedes over, and watch musicals all night. But I remember "slow dance at my prom" on the list of things he was demanding to know why he couldn't do, and I can't even suggest that he not go.

All I feel like I can do is protect him. And I've tried. When Quinn came over and mentioned her dress and Kurt lit up and the two of them started talking hemlines and sequins and rhinestones and Finn's cummerbund and bow tie, I went out in the yard, called up Figgins, and told him that after all the shit he had put my family through, my kid was going to his goddamn prom, with anyone he wanted for his goddamn date, and if I heard boo about it, Figgins was going to have a law suit so far down his throat he'd never be able to get the taste out. I'd called again, just as a gentle reminder when Kurt had said he was going with Blaine, apparently his boyfriend now. I'd even called Figgins at home when I found out about the skirt…kilt. Whatever. I've spent enough time in his office this year, I don't think he wants to see me back.

And I don't want to be tux shopping with Kurt, Blaine and Finn. But here we are at Endzo's shop. My step-son, my son, his boyfriend.

Finn and Blaine grab the tuxes that are already waiting for them since Carol took both their measurements and called in to reserve a couple sizes. Finn ducks into the changing room and Blaine looks around the store a little bit.

Quinn had entrusted Kurt with a fabric sample from her dress, and I pat myself on the back a little bit when Kurt hands the sample to Endzo, asking to see what he has for "accessories in robin's egg blue with a little bit of a Grace Kelly sheen". This time last year that would have made me cringe a little bit, but when Endzo takes the little scrap out of Kurt's hand and looks up at me, I just meet his eye, and ignore the hint of a smirk there, like I'm totally oblivious to the fact that this has never happened in this store before. I honestly can't tell if Kurt notices that type of look anymore. I remember when he started noticing it. When he was six and just wanted to try on these little pink tennis shoes and the store clerk had looked at me and he had asked her what was wrong.

Blaine notices. I can see his eyes flick from Kurt to Endzo and the way his shoulders sink just a little bit, and I can't help thinking_ that bothers him and he's with _my_ kid?_

I don't have Blaine figured out yet. When Kurt mentioned some kid named Blaine that he'd met when the Glee guys sent him on some sort of spy mission to scope out Dalton's Glee club I didn't really think much about it. I probably should have figured out that he was gay too when everything started being "Blaine and I are going to this play" and "I'm lending Blaine all these fashion magazines" and "Blaine's favorite Vogue cover is whatever too" but Kurt had to tell me. And I was relieved. Kurt had someone who knew what he was going through, and when he had to switch schools, he had a friendly face at the new one.

And then Blaine was suddenly around a lot, and I'm a little ashamed of this, I should know better, but I was expecting him to be more…like Kurt. You know. _Louder._ But he was just this… little adult in a sixteen year old's body. Very collected, very conscious, very serious. Kind of… straight-like.

Then all of a sudden it was finding Blaine in Kurt's bed, and "do more research than just falling asleep during Brokeback Mountain" and Blaine showing up at my shop and telling me that I had to… educate Kurt.

That's not the kind of thing you expect some rich, little private school brat to do to a man with an existing heart condition. But it also wasn't the kind of thing that a kid who wanted…to educate someone… you know, intimately would do. I tried to imagine Finn doing something like that to Quinn or Rachel's parents and decided that maybe this Blaine kid was okay. And he was right. I remember Kurt telling me that Quinn Fabre's parents had kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant. The only other time I'd heard Kurt that scared was in the basement after that football game.

I have a relationship with my kid. I need to take advantage of it. Even when that relationship lands me in situations like this.

"How's this?" Endzo says, "It's just labeled light blue."

Kurt takes the bowtie from Endzo and sets it next to the little scrap of fabric on the counter, inspecting it carefully as Finn comes out of the dressing room, looking a little stiff and awkward and not nearly as grown up as I'd expected him to.

"Do you have something that's not a clip on?" Kurt asks. Endzo just shakes his head, Kurt shrugs and turns toward Finn, taking him in with a little bit of a smile before crossing the store, and somehow making Finn look less like a kid in a tux and more like a young man with a couple quick tugs on his jacket and a little adjustment at his collar before whipping the bowtie expertly around his neck.

Endzo's clearly holding back a laugh now, and I'm about to give him some kind of warning when I see Finn notice the look too. His shoulders square out and his eyes narrow and Endzo backs off.

On the other side of the store, Blaine is looking through the other tuxes. Kurt tells Finn that Quinn is gonna be pissed if he doesn't have a cummerbund and turns back to Endzo who goes into the back room to find the light blue cummerbund.

"Hey, Kurt?" Blaine asks.

"Yeah?"

Blaine holds out a suit. Black. Plain. Looks like a tux. I don't know. Kurt didn't get all this clothes stuff from me.

Kurt glances over it appraisingly and says, "That's a little big for you isn't it?"

Blaine clears his throat and flushes and finally looks sixteen, "This would look nice on you," he says quietly, flicking his eyes toward the door to the back room quickly.

"I've got an outfit," Kurt protests.

Here we go. Blaine may not have realized this, with the uniform and everything, but you just don't tell Kurt what to wear. And once he's gotten a compliment on something? It's over. The second the words "that's awesome" had come out of Finn's mouth, I'd resigned myself to the damn kilt.

"I know," Blaine says, "Just try it on."

Endzo comes back with the cummerbund and hands it to Finn. Kurt reaches out to take it from him and Finn answers, "Dude, we're in glee club. I got this," before ducking back into the dressing rooms.

Blaine holds up the suit again. Kurt looks at him. Blaine looks at me, just out of the corner of his eye, and to my total and complete surprise Kurt shrugs and holds out his hand.

"Fine. It won't kill me to try it on."

They go into the dressing rooms too, Kurt with this exasperated, resigned look on his face that is _exactly_ the look his mother used to give me when she came home to a messy kitchen, or a guys poker night. I'll never understand how Kurt somehow seems to have just absorbed so much of his mother.

"Kurt's sure grown up," Endzo says, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"Yeah. Junior Prom."

"And the tall one is the step son?"

"Yeah."

"And the other one?"

I should say boyfriend. I say prom date. I tried. I got close. Endzo's a white trash little punk anyway who only runs this store because he had to turn down a basketball scholarship when he knocked up his girlfriend, it's not like the little look of shock he gives me means shit.

Finn comes back out of the dressing room, cummerbund in place. He looks around for Kurt, and then comes to stand by me.

Blaine comes out of the dressing room next, looking a little bit like a bandleader from one of those old big band shows. Kurt trudges out behind him.

"This suit smells like Doritos, rotten punch, and sweat" Kurt snips, "The outfit I already made is clean."

"It doesn't smell, you're imagining it," Blaine sighs. I look at Finn, who's watching his brother and Endzo, who looks mildly offended.

"That look works for you too, bro," Finn offers. Kurt shoots him that withering look he has sometimes. That one is not one of his mother's.

"It's polyester," Kurt sighs.

Blaine shakes his head, "Just because it's polyester doesn't mean you have to look like you're being kicked in the stomach," he sighs.

I've had a couple guys at my shop get most of the way through a divorce or a dying parent before I've figured out something was up with them. I'm not the kind of guy that picks up on every little thing. Nuances or whatever.

Unless it's my kid.

Kurt blanches. I can feel Finn tense up beside me. Blaine reaches out toward Kurt and seems to remember where we all are. He looks at Endzo again and I just barely hear him say something about not meaning it like that before clearing his throat, smiling, announcing that his fits and going back into the dressing room.

If we weren't in the middle of the store I'd be demanding to know just what in hell is going on, but we are, and Blaine's uncomfortable, and not just tux shopping with my boyfriend's father uncomfortable, just completely uncomfortable. And Finn knows why. And one of the many, many things that makes Finn an easier kid than Kurt is that Finn is easier to break.

I'm not proud that I know this, but when you wound up with a kid who is so used to getting taunted and thrown into lockers and called faggot and tossed into dumpsters that he doesn't think an _actual death threat_ is something to bring to someone's attention, you take your opportunities where you can get them.

The boys all come back out of the dressing rooms, tuxes in plastic wrappers, just as I'm starting to put together "kicked in the stomach", "didn't mean it like that" and Kurt saying something about what Blaine had been through that made him uncomfortable with giving people a reason.

I pay for Finn's tux. Blaine pays for his own, and Kurt lays the tux he'd tried onto the counter.

"Could you hold this for me?" he asks quietly.

"It's only a 6 hour hold this close to prom."

Blaine shuffles his feet, lays his hand on the tux on the counter and pushes it toward Endzo.

"That's okay. He doesn't need it."

The boys spend the drive home talking about the songs the glee club is going to sing at prom. I don't know how Blaine wound up singing at prom too, but I guess it's not that strange. They needed a band and I went to Regionals and Sectionals. The kid can sing.

Kurt and Blaine go up to his room and I can tell by how loud the whirr of the sewing machine is that the door is open like it's supposed to be.

Finn goes right to the fridge and pulls out a can of pop. I grab it out of his hand.

"What happened to Blaine?" I ask him.

"I don't know," Finn tries.

"Finn."

"He got beat up at his school's Sadie Hawkins dance," Finn answers. This could easily have been a four hour discussion with Kurt. The kind where you feel like you need a Gatorade and a nap afterward. I hand him his can of pop back.

"You just… you watch out for them okay? You and Puck and the other guys."

Finn nods, takes a gulp from his can and leaves. I almost call Figgins again, but really? What else can I do?

* * *

><p>Prom night itself goes back and forth between easy and hard. Finn almost spills something on Quinn's corsage, but Carol saves it. Easy.<p>

Blaine's mom calls seven times. To make sure he got there. To make sure she knows the number to Puck's house. To make sure she has my cell number. To make sure I have her cell number. To make sure that Blaine has his cell phone. To make sure she knows where Blaine is sleeping (on the couch). To ask us to just call them when the boys get home. Hard.

Blaine and Finn get dressed in Finn's room and come downstairs a full 20 minutes sooner than Kurt. I have this weird burn of pride over Finn, who went from the jock that I kicked out for calling Kurt "faggy" to being the kid pulling the rental tag off his brother's boyfriend's tux. For being that new generation of dude that I keep waiting for when I see looks like the ones on Endzo's face, and hear the fear in Blaine's mother's voice. Easy.

Pictures of Finn. Easy. Pictures of Kurt. Easy. Pictures of Kurt and Finn. Easy. Pictures of Kurt and Blaine. Not totally easy, I sometimes wonder if part of me is always going to hold onto those fantasies I had when he was a baby. The girls and the baseball and whatever. Watching the two of them grin for those pictures though? Easy.

Sending them off for prom at a school where there was nothing protecting them from getting harassed, realizing how important it was to Kurt to have this night, knowing, that he thought all this progress had been made for him, just because one stupid jock's stupid girlfriend was on his case and knowing, just flat out knowing, that nothing had changed?

So, so hard.

* * *

><p>I swear to god I damn near had another heart attack when the phone rang. And it wasn't just me, Carol jumped too, grabbed the post-it with Blaine's mother's phone number on it and was up to get the phone right behind me.<p>

The fact that it's about Finn isn't that much of a relief. Apparently that crazy cheerleading coach had broken up a fight and we had to come and pick Finn up. No further details. Not who he was fighting with, not what the fight was about. Nothing.

Carol goes to get him, and I feel a little weird about that. It's one of those weird blended family things that sometimes stick out. This seems like a father/son sort of issue, but sometimes it just gets thrown at you that sometimes, one kid is yours and one kid isn't. And I've been focused on my kid a lot lately.

When Finn gets home, still just red in the face mad, I realize that I don't even know who in hell Jesse St. James is. All I catch is that he got in a fight with some college guy over a girl he didn't even take to prom.

Carol grounds him, tells him there's no way he's going to Puck's after party, and that tomorrow he's also handing over his car keys, he can keep them tonight in case Kurt and Blaine need a ride home. Then she sends him up to his room, drops down on the couch angrily, and hisses, "You know, they're young and you try to be supportive and remember the mistakes that you made…but I just hate that Quinn girl."

We stay up until the phone rings at about 10:15, listening to Finn stomp above us the entire time. It's Blaine. He says they had a great time and they're going to Puck's. I remind them that they're supposed to be home at 12:30, and that I'm not stupid and I know what happens at an after prom party. If they're drinking they damn well better call for a ride and if they're… anything else… you know be careful and respectful and… you know- just don't.

Blaine's voice is only a little higher pitched as he promises that they'll be fine, and he hangs up. Blaine is really nowhere near as afraid of me as I want him to be. Maybe cause kids like Blaine and Kurt have more pressing things to be afraid of.

But not tonight I guess. I feel the muscles in my shoulders loosen up, not realizing how tightly I've been holding them all night. Carol calls Blaine's mom, but Blaine already called her. We tell Finn to keep his cell phone on, and we go to bed, able to relax at having gotten three kids through a rite of passage, safe and whole.

* * *

><p>"Mr. Hummel?"<p>

It's late, and dark and it takes me a minute to remember that's me.

"Mr. Hummel? It's Blaine."

Right. The kids were supposed to check in when they got home from Puck's party.

"Yeah?" I manage, easing up out of bed enough to see an outline of a kid too short and too compact to be Kurt or Finn. He's holding his phone out in his hand.

"Here."

I take the phone out of his hand by the wrong end, try to talk into the ear part, silently wish for the days when phones had discernible ends and assure Dianna that everyone is fine, home, and that Finn made up the couch for Blaine.

"Finn made up the couch right? He didn't just throw a pillow on it?" I ask.

"Yes," Blaine answers immediately, high and tense. Maybe he is afraid of me after all. Carol says I'm a terror in the morning.

I tell Dianna we'll make the kids breakfast in the morning and wish her a good night, handing the phone back to Blaine to hang up, because I know I'll never figure it out.

Carol moans a little bit at the light from the hallway coming in from the door, which has drifted all the way open and suddenly I hear the sound of someone puking and Kurt- his voice high and stretched and somehow with that little bit of a lisp that I had been stupid enough to think was magically going away by itself – yelling "No it's not, Finn!" from down the hall in the bathroom.

Kurt's crying. I'm awake now.

Awake enough to realize that Blaine smells like vodka.

Carol's awake at her kid's name too and we're both out of bed.

"What the hell happened?" I demand, flicking on the bed side lamp. Blaine looks pale and small and young in his sweater and jeans all of a sudden, nothing like the young man in the tux from earlier, going off to do something that he knew was dangerous just to prove he could. Because my kid was convincing him that he could.

I'm on my way out the door, and Blaine throws his arm out, like he's big enough to stop me. "Wait. Don't! Just… stop. Please."

But I'm not stopping for some drunk teenager who doesn't want me to help my own son. Blaine and Carol follow me into the hallway, up to the staircase across from Kurt's bedroom. The toilet flushes and I stop. Kurt's bedroom door is open, with the lights on, his prom clothes are crumpled up on the bed. You notice things like crumpled prom clothes with a kid like Kurt.

There's some sort of gold stick thing lying in his door way. There's a cheap plastic crown hanging on the banister.

"Kurt… you're… you're so much better than all those people."

I can hear Finn's voice echoing out of the bathroom and Kurt sob. Like an actual, actual sob. Not like the cut off little ones he can't quite hide sometimes that he thinks I don't notice, just because he's not facing me.

"Clearly," Kurt responds, the poor kid's voice just raw, "After all I'm… the-the-their _Queen_."

Another sob. And it all falls together. I'm too mad to even swear, I start toward the bathroom and Blaine steps in front of me again, waving his arms at me, like, "calm down, be quiet. We're all drunk and handling this without you."

"Please… please just… don't," he says. I'm about to push right past him when Carol grabs my shoulder.

"Kurt… it was just," Finn's trying again, "They're just neanderthals right? Isn't that what you call them? In a couple years they'll be cleaning your septic tank."

"F-f-finn can you please g-g-g-o get Blaine please?" Kurt's slurring, sobbing drunk because his big night got ruined, by some prank, but some fucking kids at a school I never should have let him go back to. If I find out Karofsky had anything to do with this, that's it. I'll drive over and pound the kid tonight. Forget it.

"Yeah, Okay."

Kurt throws up again as Finn walks out the door, turning on the classic deer in headlights look when he sees us all in the hallway.

"Dude," he says to Blaine.

"Just… just give me a second, I'll be right there."

Finn shrugs and goes back into the bathroom.

"Let's…let's go downstairs," Carol says.

"No, I'm going to-"

"Mr. Hummel, please…not… not right now," Blaine begs and I give in. Finn and Blaine are the ones who must have gotten him home, they're the ones who know what's going on. Fine. There's nothing I can fix for him or protect him from right now. I let Blaine lead me downstairs, Carole steering me all the way to the kitchen table.

Blaine fills us in. Fucking idiot Figgins reading the name out. Kurt running out, Blaine going after him. Kurt realizing that nothing had changed. That the only thing that damn principle's anti bully squad had managed was to send everything underground. Kurt sucking it up, like he'd been forced to suck up everything since he was five. Playing it off like it was nothing but just not being able to keep that up all night.

Shit, you just can't blame a kid for only being able to be so brave.

I know Puck's the kind of kid who would try to spike the punch at Prom, I knew too many guys like him when I was that age. I'm not sure where I want to put him in my little mental list of "New Generation Dudes" for handing off the bottle to Kurt with, as Blaine puts it, a "you need this more than all those dumb shits, bro."

It turns out Blaine only had one drink, the smell is from getting spilled on.

"I just… please, he's been humiliated enough for the night. Just… Finn and I can take care of this. Please don't make us tell him in the morning that you saw him like this."

Carol nods, I feel like I have to nod along. Blaine heads back up the stairs.

I don't even know what to say. Carole and I sit in silence at the kitchen table until we can hear Finn coming down the stairs.

He shoots us this terrible commiserating look and opens the fridge, digging out left overs immediately, something, it occurs to me, that I have never once seen Kurt do. Not even in the last year when he shot up a foot. It's a very… normal, teenage boy response. I'm awake in the middle of the night and I don't know what to do with myself.

"I feel like there's nothing I can do," Finn sighs, like he needs and excuse for finishing the Chinese that I meant to throw out today.

"I never should have let him go back to that school," I sigh. Carole leans into me. We had this discussion a million times. We just couldn't afford to keep him at Dalton, and he wanted to go back so badly…and… between years of Kurt taking care of the house and helping out at the shop and taking care of me when I was sick this year and just always being the other person in the family, I'd let myself think my sixteen year old son was mature enough to be trusted with his safety.

"Rachel and Puck and Lauren and Quinn said they were epic," Finn says, through a mouthful of lo mein. "Apparently Kurt walked back in, got crowned and then he was all "eat your heart out Kate Middleton" and Blaine came out to dance the king and queen dance with him."

Carole almost laughs, just a little huff of breath with her mouth still closed.

I stand up, and go back upstairs, Carole behind me.

Kurt's not sobbing anymore, but I can here Blaine's voice, low and quiet so I can't make out any of the words. I pick up the crown and the stick thing and go throw them away in our bathroom where Kurt won't see them in the morning. I pour a glass of water and grab the aspirin out of mine and Carol's medicine cabinet. She's hanging up his clothes when I walk by his room this time.

"You were amazing," Blaine's telling him. "I wish I was half as brave as you."

I want to just walk in, hug him, but everyone keeps telling me not to. They were there. And Blaine… Blaine understands Kurt like Finn and Carol and I never can. So I crack the door open and hold the aspirin and the water glass out.

"Make sure he takes a couple of these before he goes to sleep."

"I will."

And I go to bed and lie there, thinking about what I could've done differently.

* * *

><p>When I go check on Kurt in the morning Blaine is in his bed again. But they had a rough night, and they're fully clothed (Blaine's still in his jeans for crissakes) and Kurt's just got his head resting on Blaine's shoulder, and he looks okay enough, so I just can't manage getting worried or mad.<p>

I clear my throat a couple times, until Blaine shifts awake, then Kurt.

"You up for breakfast? Or should we hold off?"

"Yeah. I can do breakfast," Blaine says.

"Kurt?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Then I go wake up Finn, who comes down with me. We get out most of the stuff for the post prom breakfast we'd talked about, pancakes and bacon and then kind of exchange this look where we both realize we better not cook anything.

Finn pulls a box of Rice Crispies out of the cupboard as Blaine comes down the stairs.

"Kurt coming down?"

"He said he wants to get dressed," Blaine answers with an awkward shrug.

"For breakfast?"

"That's what he said."

Finn pulls out the milk and the orange juice, and he and Blaine set everything out. Finn pours himself a glass of orange juice and pushes the jug toward Blaine, who looks over at the bottom of the stairs, pours himself a glass, looks back.

It's another fifteen minutes before Kurt comes downstairs with his hair combed, wearing what looks like a white silk button up shirt under some sort of black vest with too many buttons, pants and boots that I'm not sure I could even figure out how to get on.

"Morning," he says, sounding casual and together. He sits down next to Blaine, grabs the box of Rice Crispies and pours himself a bowl. Finn pushes the milk jug toward him.

The three boys eat in total silence for a few moments before Kurt settles back in his chair, and smiles.

"So," he says, "As perfect as my royal wedding Alexander McQueen ensemble was last night, I think for my next dance I'm going to need something with a little more color."

Finn looks at him like he's absolutely nuts. And I know I've got the same look on my face and so does Blaine. But I see it fall from Blaine's face just as the smile is threatening to crumble off Kurt's and he replies, "I don't know. Theres's something to be said for formal black."

"You and Quinn made me go in bright blue," Finn shrugs.

"Yes. She insisted. Next time you should really coordinate instead of match."

"Yeah. Well. We'll see about next time," Finn sighs, "Quinn is pretty pissed at me."

"I really wish you hadn't missed Jesse's face," Kurt laughs.

"What is so terrible about this Jesse guy anyway?" Blaine asks, "He was totally polite to me."

"Vocal Adrenaline" Finn and Kurt answer at the same time.

"Oh."

The boys all keep talking like nothing happened last night. Blaine smiles when Kurt smiles, and eventually stops watching him out of the corner of his eye. Finn grabs onto any topic Kurt presents and Kurt is sitting there, in his crazy clothes, talking about glee club and fashion.

And I can almost believe that whether they're yelling at him or whispering behind his back, that they can't touch my kid.

But I can't believe it quite as much as he's gonna need to.


	2. The Merits and Failings of Redemption

This isn't a second chapter so much as a companion peice from Blaine's Perspective.

* * *

><p>I'm going to McKinley's Prom for exactly two reasons: Because of how fast Kurt's face fell when he thought I didn't want to go with him and because of how deliriously happy he'd looked when I said yes.<p>

The fact that he asked actually totally blew me away, and it shouldn't have. Everything about Prom screams "Kurt". Big cheesy romantic night, dressing up, and music? Of course he wanted to go. But, yeah. It didn't occur to me… because it's not the kind of thing I would think of going to anymore.

Kurt can be a little… I don't want to say self centered. It's more like he understands everything with himself at the center, he's sort of really deep inside his own perspective sometimes. He doesn't get that he and I going to Prom together could be an issue because it's not an issue to him. I almost don't want to answer his "What about Prom, Blaine?" because… his perspective on this is exactly what everyone's perspective _should be_ and I don't want to taint that for him. But at some point we tacitly agreed to this honesty pact and I won't be the first to break it.

So I tell him the first half of the Sadie Hawkins story. Went with a friend, got beaten up. I try to blow through the story as fast as possible. Shrug it off. I don't want Kurt, of all people, to be another person who sees me as the kid that got beaten for going to a dance. But it's stupid to pretend with Kurt, because he gets it.

And this is the amazing thing about Kurt. When he does see your side, he'll do anything for you. He gave up a solo he really worked hard for and really wanted for his dad. He's ready to give up Prom for me. Kurt was even willing to give up a shot at having the upper hand for _Karofsky_. Because he understood.

In Kurt's shoes, I would have had the news about Karofsky in the school paper five minutes after he kissed me. I would have had it in the town's paper. I'd have run down the hallways yelling at the top of my lungs. I'd put it in skywriting. Smoke signals. Anything. But I don't have Kurt's compassion.

I can't take something so important away from a guy that awesome. And his school is not my school. If he thinks we're safe, we'll probably be safe. And neither of us is actually afraid of someone calling us queers or faggots or whatever. And it might be fun. Prom. With my boyfriend.

But I don't have Kurt's courage, so I'm still afraid. And I don't have Kurt's optimism, so I'm worried. And I don't have Kurt's family so I have to spend the rest of the night putting together a plan to convince my mom to let me go to Prom with him.

Because in the second half of the Sadie Hawkins story I get transferred to Dalton. The dance had been on a Saturday and my first day at Dalton was Tuesday. Kurt thought starting halfway through the semester had been hard? He hadn't had to do it with a black eye, a split lip and a sprained shoulder.

That's probably why I was so excited about Kurt when I first saw him at Dalton. I thought I could be his mentor the way that David had been mine. I thought I could help him out and teach him what I knew and help him accept himself and help myself wash away the complete mortification of the first couple weeks there, and of finding out that while every single one of Dalton's very rare new kids was assigned a mentor, I was the only one whose mentor had continued to walk him places and help him with homework and whatever else a month longer than the obligatory week, because everyone had just felt so bad for me.

Kurt transferring meant I didn't have to be the new kid anymore, and there would be one (cute, _gay_, musical) guy at Dalton who didn't remember me sitting silently in the back of classes, trying to dab my bloody lip as surreptitiously as possibly.

But my parents remember it, and, for all of us, it's so much more than a sore spot.

I start gently cornering my mom before Dad gets home. If I explain it to him it'll never happen. My dad is not Kurt's dad. I need to get my mom on my side first, so that she'll convince him for me.

I need to stress that this is different than the Sadie Hawkins dance. I can't tell her that Kurt and I can take care of ourselves. She won't believe me. But maybe after two years of Dalton she'll believe that we've got friends going with and that will make us okay.

At first I just casually mention Finn. That he's Kurt's step brother and he's a football player and he's in Glee and how Finn and I watch football sometimes when I'm over at Kurt's house.

I work the Bullywhips into conversation, making it sound like they've been around forever instead of for the last week and a half, and in no way mentioning that it was mostly a gimmick to get Santana elected prom queen, or that last night, after Kurt had found out about the thing at Sadie Hawkins, I'd let my walls fall a little bit and flat out begged him to never let Karofsky walk him to his car, to never leave the actual school building with him.

I show her the picture that Kurt texted me, of all the Glee guys in their zombie football uniforms. Explain how there was a whole Football/Glee alliance for McKinley's championship, reiterate that Kurt's step brother is a ten foot tall jock and then tell her that Kurt asked me to go to Prom with him.

She bites her lip and looks sort of through the phone, and just when I'm sure she's going to say no, she says, "So… Kurt."

"Kurt," I repeat, my heartbeat starting up a little too hard. She's going to say no and I'm going to have to tell him that my parents won't let me go and he's going to get upset.

"Is he…" I wait for her to finish, until I'm pretty sure she's not going to.

"Gay?" I ask quietly. I've… edited Kurt a little when I talk about him. Okay, I've edited Kurt a lot when I talk about him, but it seems like asking if I can go to Prom with him should fill in at least a couple of the details.

"Special," she finishes, clearing her throat a little. "To you?"

"Yeah, Mom. He's really special."

I feel terrible about only telling her now and not even really saying it. I'm so full of crap telling Kurt stuff like "courage" and "I'm out and I'm proud" when, anywhere that doesn't involve being surrounded by the Warblers, or increasingly the New Directions, all I really do is not outright lie. Kurt and I have been dating for almost two months, but I haven't told my parents that. I don't lie about where I am. They know that I'm at Kurt's pretty much every day after school, and they know that Kurt is a boy I met at Dalton and that his father owns a tire store. They might not have known he's gay, but it's not I'd hidden it, or like they would forbid me to see him. We just don't talk about stuff like this in my house.

Not like they do at Kurt's house. Kurt and I both have a complete catalogue of the last couple years of vogue, but I buy mine at the drug store and keep them in a desk drawer. Not hidden, just out of sight. Kurt gets his delivered to the house and tries to explain photo essays to Mr. Hummel, who will actually listen, even if his response is always something like "Okay, but if the whole point is pretty girls in pretty dresses, how does this appeal to you? And why does their hair look like that?"

When my parents and I talk about the Warblers it usually devolves into making sure that all that show choir stuff isn't distracting me from my grades and a reminder that my grades weren't great when I started at Dalton. Kurt's dad actually listened to him practice "Don't Cry For Me Argentina".

And Kurt had told his father that we were dating. A couple days after Kurt and I had this sort of weird conversation making it official, Kurt and I were studying at his house, and Mr. Hummel had gotten home, sat down across from us at the table to take his boots off and just given me this appraising look (which I know I deserved after the drinking thing and the sex talk thing) and just said, "So… you two are…like… an item now?" I must have turned absolutely purple before nodding, and he just reached across the table, slapped me on the arm and said, "You boys keep the door open, okay?" before going into the living room to watch TV. Kurt had laughed at me for looking so panicked.

And, as amazing as Kurt's family is, when he comes downstairs in his studded, cropped tuxedo jacket, kilt, leggings and those amazing boots that he wears with everything, I have to wonder if their total acceptance is really helping him in Lima, Ohio.

He looks great, and he looks so happy, and everything about it is so _Kurt _that I can't help but grin like an idiot. But it also just terrifies me. When Taylor and I had gone to Sadie Hawkins we'd been in jeans and T-shirts. Sometimes I wish Kurt was… not afraid to stick out, but more aware that he didn't have to. I've been working out what to wear ever since Mr. Hummel offered to try and get us discounts on tuxes. I just want to look like everyone else. My one concession to Kurt's desire for flair is that I'm going to get us carnation boutonnieres. He'll love that.

I'm relieved when Mr. Hummel says he doesn't like it and I try as tactfully as possible to agree, not expecting the look Kurt shoots me that practically screams "Betrayer!"

When Kurt starts talking about how it's just like everyone else's clothes, and how he's done everything right, I realize that he really does think everything is fine and that nothing can happen to him. Just because he's got Karofsky under control. And I'm trying to believe him, until he mentions what happened to me and I can't help but squirm, because they actually talk about things in Kurt's house, and that means Finn and Mr. Hummel look at me as the kid that got beaten for going to a dance too. And they know that I'm not…like Kurt and this might be…more dangerous for Kurt than it was for me.

I give it another try at the tux shop. Maybe if he sees how gorgeous he looks in a tux he'll reconsider. But he's clearly already made up his mind, and I feel bad about my little slip. So when he sets the tux that he clearly hates down on the counter, in front of the guy that's been laughing at him since he walked in, I can't do it.

What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't want him to be himself?

* * *

><p>I leave my tux at the Hudmel's house on purpose, I just don't want to make a big deal out of this at my house. I don't lie. I'm going to Kurt's, we're gonna get dinner, we're going to the dance, we're going to Puck's and then I'm staying at Kurt's house. My dad nods, my mom tells me to have a nice night and I bolt for my car.<p>

Kurt is getting ready in his room when I show up, and I'm glad that the potential awkwardness of waiting downstairs for him is fixed by needing to go change myself. I feel like if I can just keep moving forward toward the dance itself I won't have to focus on trying not to remember the last one. If I focus on buttoning my shirt, I won't be having little flutters in my stomach like echoes of a Doc Marten to the solar plexus. If I make a production of slipping my jacket on just right I won't be comparing the slide of cheap polyester lining over my arms to the scrape of concrete. The sound of Finn humming is not the sound of Taylor yelling for help.

I expect changing with Finn to be weirder than it is, not for me, I do go to an all boys school, but for him. Kurt's mentioned what happened when the two of them shared a room. But Finn just turns his back to me and doesn't seem to care.

The only awkward moment is when he turns around and goes "Hey man, do you mind helping me tie this?" while holding the ends of his bow tie in a way that's so adorably helpless that I can almost see what Kurt must have seen in him, even though Finn is so, so not my type. It's also adorable because it means Kurt must have gone out and gotten him a real bow tie.

"Sorry, I don't know how to tie a bow tie," I tell him, pointing at my own tie, which I tied just like the one on my Dalton uniform. His eyes widen weirdly for a moment and he drops his gaze to the floor.

"Oh… sorry."

I'm about to ask Finn if he's apologizing for thinking that all gay men can tie a bow tie, which is definitely the weirdest stereotype I've ever heard, but he just walks out of the room. I hear him knock on Kurt's door and ask outside the door. "Hey, Kurt? Can you tie my bow tie?"

I go downstairs. Carol claps her hands when I hit the bottom step, and hurries toward me.

"Oh, don't you just look so handsome!" she gushes. I pull back in surprise bit when she sets her hands on either side of my face, but stop myself in time. She pats my hair and lets me go.

Kurt's house really isn't my house and it makes me sad sometimes. I always thought my parents handled me coming out pretty well. Taylor's parents had flipped. He'd been sent to a therapist and grounded and pretty much treated like he was sick until his parents gave up on trying to change him. Or talk to him, or acknowledge him or really do anything but continue to feed and clothe him.

My parents hadn't been thrilled, but they weren't that upset. It was actually something they just seemed to ignore. It wasn't like they ignored _me_, we all just kind of… left this part of me out of conversations, which wasn't that hard, even when my dad drug home the frame of a car and a big crate of parts and declared a heretofore undiscovered love of vintage Chevys. And it wasn't like I had a boyfriend to talk about back then and sometimes it was just too hard to talk about Taylor. Then when I'd transferred to Dalton it had been sort of the same. I wasn't the gay Warbler, like Kurt had seemed so intent on being at first. I was Junior Member Blaine Anderson First Soloist (the new kid who had shown up beat to hell). And I could be a little… gayer at Dalton if I felt like it. If Wes and David and Thad were waxing poetic about every inch of Emma Watson, I could add a footnote about Tom Felton and they would listen. They didn't exactly agree. But they'd nod. It was enough.

But the way Mr. Hummel comes up to me, slaps me on the arm and says, "Looking sharp, kid." Then sort of shifts me away from Carol and slips me thirty bucks for dinner with a warning that he will find out if I give it to Puck for booze reminds me that there is a difference between "tolerance" and "acceptance" and kind of makes me feel like a complete tool for ever thinking I could've mentored Kurt.

The phone rings again and Mr. Hummel goes to answer it as Finn comes downstairs next. He gets the same treatment from Carol, plus a kiss, but he actually can tug away from her.

It's a little awkward to sit on the couch waiting for Kurt while Finn gets Quinn's corsage out of the fridge and Mr. Hummel disappears on the phone a couple more times but it's totally worth it to see Kurt come downstairs, flushed with glee, his outfit finished and his hair clearly the masterpiece he was hoping for when he sat down to do it earlier. The happy flush across his face when I take our carnations out of my overnight bag might be the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Carol insists on pictures, a ton of pictures, and I sit on the couch while she gets pictures of Finn in his tux, and Kurt in his and then pictures of the brothers together before she ushers me up with a wave of her hand.

Kurt puts his hand on the small of my back and just for that moment, when Kurt and I are just teenagers in formal wear for the first time, getting our Prom pictures taken by parents, I can see the world from Kurt's perspective, and I let my hopes get up a little bit too.

* * *

><p>I don't know why I'm always surprised at how quickly I got accepted into the New Directions clique, or why I always forget that even the unlikeliest of them watch out for each other. I mean, I go to a school where the hardest part of convincing about twenty teenage guys to go sing a dirty song to a guy for me <em>at his work<em> was convincing them that no one would be killed in a plane crash.

At the very least you'd think I would remember just how incestuous the whole thing is and realize when Puck gets off stage and sidles up to me that I am Puck's best friend's stepbrother's boyfriend. Or that my boyfriend is the best friend of two of Puck's ex-girlfriends. Or that my boyfriend's stepbrother is currently dating the mother of Puck's child.

Anyway, I shouldn't be so surprised when he comes up to talk to me, dropping his hand onto my shoulder with an air of camaraderie.

Although I don't think any amount of second hand familiarity would have prepared me for what he says to me, which is, "So, Blaine Warbler, reservations at Puckzilla's B and B- Booze and Beds- are filling up fast. Lauren and I obviously have my room, and Mike and Tina just called my parent's room, so unless you want to get yours and Hummel's freak on in my little sister's Cinderella sheets, I suggest you lock down the spare bedroom before Brittany successfully removes someone from their date."

I'm not totally sure if he's messing with me or not. Why in the hell he is he asking me, who he barely knows, if I want to have sex in his house tonight instead of Kurt, who he actually knows? There's a break in the crowd as I wonder about this and I catch a glimpse of Kurt and Mercedes. Kurt's twirling for her to show off his outfit.

Oh. Puck thinks Kurt's "the girl". And as annoying as that should be, it's a little hard to hold something like that against a decidedly alpha, former jock/bully/football player _dude_ who just offered me and my boyfriend first dibs on a non-princess bedroom to "get our freak on" on Prom night.

"Uh, yeah. Let's lock that down."

Puck grins, pulls his hand off my shoulder and pulls it back, forming a fist at just about the level of my face.

I flinch.

Puck looks at me like I'm completely insane, grabs my wrist and brings my hand up. I realize about half way up that he is attempting to fist bump me. Knuckles to knuckles, not knuckles to face.

"Thanks Puck New Directions," I laugh, hoping my little moment of being a kicked puppy comes off as just being some confused private school guy not down with what the kids are doing these days.

"I got your back," Puck responds, "And now, I have a date with Coach Sylvester's punch bowl."

I shove the fact that I'm not nearly as over my issues as I want to be down pretty hard as Puck walks away, which is helped by a sudden, fun little jitter down my spine. Spare bedroom and a super late curfew? That's got potential. I mean, even with as badly as he wanted the outfit and the dinner and the dance, there is no way in any circle of hell Kurt is going to succumb to the sex on prom night cliché. We aren't ready.

And that's okay. We're…you know, doing more than I ever want Mr. Hummel to find out about. Kurt has more than proved to himself that he is _not_ a baby penguin, and I've realized how sexy he is when he isn't trying to be, but we aren't ready and I'm not going to lose my virginity in Puck's spare bedroom listening to the New Directions getting drunk (or, from what I understand, Tina's… enthusiasm) either. I've got a pretty extensive fantasy about how that is going to go, and this isn't it.

I go join Kurt and Mercedes at their table just as Mercedes spots me, winks, and goes off to join Rachel and Jesse. I can't figure out if Mercedes likes me or not. I know the first time we met hadn't gone great. Kurt's told me that she's playing the single and strong card pretty hard, and it's not like I don't realize the extent to which I impinge on her and Kurt's best friend time.

"Puck wasn't trying to get you to spike the punch was he?" Kurt asks, "Cause if he's going to play the "he doesn't even go here card" then he should get Jesse to do it."

"Uh, no. Uh…He… uhh-"

"He, uh, what?" Kurt asks, grinning.

"I reserved his spare bedroom. For tonight. For us."

Kurt bites his lip.

"Don't worry," I tell him immediately. "I'm not expecting anything. We don't have to do anything more… you know, than usual. We don't _have to_ do anything at all. I just thought, you know, some privacy might be… fun. I can go cancel if you want me to."

Kurt clears his throat and shoots me one of those flirty side long looks that make my mouth go dry, and I wonder for a second if Puck knows something I don't. Then I realize how weird that would be.

"Umm… actually, with some privacy, a little bit more might be on the table," Kurt says, with a blush and a shrug.

"Really?" I ask, trying not to let my imagination go into overdrive, but definitely realizing that I have absolutely no clue how to take a kilt off, and vaguely considering going to the bathroom to google it on my phone. "Like…what?"

Kurt shrugs and laughs, that same little happy but sort of awkward laugh he had when he admitted he was nervous at Regionals.

"Don't make me draw you a diagram, Blaine," he says.

"You want me to go get you some punch before Puck gets to it?"

"Sure."

* * *

><p>I'm having fun. Every time Kurt asks me if I'm okay, I mean it more when I tell him I fine. He was right, this didn't have to be about fear. This didn't have to be about anything but joy.<p>

The Sadie Hawkins dance had almost been… about anger, I guess. Taylor and I just hitting our limit and just needing to be like, yeah, you know what, we're everything you say we are. Deal with it. I really don't like who I was back at my own school, and I know that Taylor didn't help that.

If I had been here with Kurt a couple months ago, before he came to Dalton, I could see how it might have been the same thing for us. But that's not who Kurt is, and it looked like he might have been right after all. No one had said anything. People weren't even looking at us weird once everyone had seen the kilt. I mean, it's not like we were shoving it in their faces or anything, but we were obviously here together and… people did seem indifferent.

Maybe everyone seeing what happened when one of their own actually had to leave school because of the rampant bullying, maybe when it looked like the lead tormentor had seen the light to the extent that he was walking Kurt to class and crying out apologies that someone must have seen, maybe it did make a difference.

I'm still trying to convince myself of this when I look up at the clock and realize that if I want the slow dance I have spent the last week of math class fantasizing about, I need to get up the guts to ask for the next one, because it'll probably be my last chance.

The music slows and I'm convincing myself to hold out my hand, but instead of a recorded track or one of the New direction's performances (I'm pretty sure Artie had called dibs on a slow number), Figgins goes up to the mic.

It's sort of sad when Karfosky wins. As he goes up to get the crown and Santana leans over to sneer something at Quinn I can't help picturing Santana and Karofsky going out for that King and Queen slow dance, their smiles about winning looking like smiles about each other. It feels like a little victory for the closet.

For like five seconds, until I realize that that in a couple days, maybe even by this time tomorrow, Santana and Karofsky will both have thrown those cheap plastic crowns away, and gone back to lying and being miserable all of the time. And that Kurt and I, no matter what people might whisper about behind our backs, each got to go to prom, as ourselves, with a person we care about so much. And they can't take that away from us.

And then they try.

Kurt freezes at the announcement. Not like he just stops moving, but like his whole body turns to ice.

I guess… I really did expect him to just march up there, glare everyone down, spout off some witty and acerbic one liner… like " Off with your heads" or… "you all know I rule" whatever.

This is a guy I have seen walk out of his house in something that I'm pretty sure was a straight jacket. Who got himself on the football team just to follow through on a lie to his father that he hadn't even told, and then _won the game. _Who put together a Barbra Streisand-vention in the middle of the North Hills Mall. Who used to tell football players twice his size that they would be working for him one day _as_ they tossed him into dumpsters.

But then I see his face, and see how it doesn't unfreeze and see the step he takes backward.

And he runs.

And I run.

And my first thought isn't "Oh poor Kurt" or "You're all going to regret this". It's "Oh god, don't go outside into the dark."

* * *

><p>I've been telling myself all week that all I want in the world is to be as brave as Kurt is. Even more than I don't want Kurt to need to be so brave. But I don't manage it. When I walk out onto the dance floor, where Kurt is standing, surrounded by a hostile crowd, I am terrified.<p>

In the slow dance I imagined, we were hand in hand, hip to hip, Kurt's head resting on my shoulder, which even in the fantasy I knew was stupid, because he's like four inches taller than me, but we were slowly turning to the music, not caring if anyone was watching, just listening to each other's breathing.

This is like a terrible cover band version of that. Kurt is looking around him, like he cares what any of these disgusting red necks think, and my heart is beating so hard that I'm pretty sure he can feel it, even from a few inches away. His smile isn't quite right, the way he's so rigid under my hands isn't quite right, and as much as we put on a show, let these fucking hicks see that they can't touch him, this isn't what I wanted, and I'm just relieved when the dance ends and the New Directions all head out into the parking lot.

I guess I don't realize how not okay he still is until he tosses me his car keys. There's a lot about Kurt that I write off as adorably eccentric, but he is genuinely just weird about his car. If we're going to make out after a play or go park somewhere, he makes me drive my car. Finn isn't even allowed touch Kurt's car, let alone be inside it.

"Kurt?" I ask as we climb inside and I hit the locks.

"Don't ask me if I'm okay," Kurt croaks, pulling the crown off his head and holding it between his knees.

"We don't have to go to this party."

"Yes. We do."

"Kurt, I know they hurt you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it was just a joke."

"Blaine! Just… please," his voice is harsh again, low and raspy and nothing like that sort of high angelic breathiness that makes him exquisite when he sings, and I just… I don't know how to help.

"I can't… can't do this right now. I just… look, we can deal with this later, right now we are going to Puck's party, we are going to have a drink with our friends, and then we'll go home and we can deal with this then. Or actually in the morning. Not now."

I put the car in drive, creeping very carefully out of his parking spot just in case some dumb kid in their beater is zipping around the lot.

"Do you want me to stay sober, drive you home?"

He laughs, mirthlessly, "I want us to have a normal prom night."

* * *

><p>I loop the car around Puck's block a couple times, pretending to be lost, but really just giving Kurt a little time to steel himself. I think he figures it out, but he doesn't say anything.<p>

I didn't realize that doing that meant we'd be the last ones to arrive.

Kurt's hailed like a returning hero when we walk inside. Sam claps and yells out "Long Live the Queen!" Quinn grabs the crown out of his hands and puts it on his head, Puck hands him a glass, slapping Kurt hard on the back with a "You deserve this more than all those dumb shits, bro."

Kurt smiles, a sort of plastic smile that isn't him, that no one else seems to notice. And I go change to give him a little time to let the face grin set. The more he drinks, the more shrill and fake it gets, and the more I drink the more upset I get about it.

I do what I can. When Puck and Lauren declare that they cornered Jacob Ben Israel and patted him down for his tape recorder and his notebook, that they will find out who spearheaded the write in campaign, and that their vengeance will be swift and terrible, I slip both the tape recorder and the notebook into my cardigan pocket and leave it in Quinn's purse. I feel like she's the best person to trust with that, considering her recent public humiliations and the fact that she really wanted to be Prom Queen. When Puck and Sam have put the crown back on his head a couple more times I pull it off and wear it for a while, then start passing it around to the girls, saying something about them all being beautiful girls who should all get a chance at the crown.

And when Puck refills his glass, and Kurt sits on my lap and spills most of it on me, I take the glass out of his hands, take a sip, and realize that he's drinking vodka with just enough coke in it to make it brown.

I finish it to keep it away from him, and then I call Finn.

* * *

><p>The ride back to the Hudmels is super awkward. Apparently no one even texted Finn to let him know what had happened, so when I have to explain it, Finn is just raging pissed off. Then we all have to squeeze onto the bench seat of Finn's tiny pickup, which is made just a little bit more awkward, because Kurt seems to have gone from fakely haughty and defiant to just blank. He leans back on the seat, staring up at the roof of the car, holding my hand, not talking the whole way back.<p>

"Thank you for pickningnus up Finn," Kurt slurs politely as we step into his and Finn's foyer.

"Yeah, man," Finn says, his voice…soft and sad in a way I wouldn't have expected from him as he carefully plucks the crown off Kurt's head and loops it over his arm. "Come on, let's just get you upstairs."

"Wait-" Kurt says, burping and holding up a hand in a way that is not…unregal, "I have to take my boots off first."

He bends over and tips forward. Finn and I both duck to catch him before he face plants into the steps and pull him back up.

"Okay, my boots are spinning to fast to take them off," he declares.

"Don't worry about it," Finn says.

"Yeah, come on," I agree.

I loop one of Kurt's arms over my shoulders, and Finn tries to do the same until he realizes he's just too tall. We start up the stairs together, me carrying a decent amount of Kurt's pretty negligible weight over my shoulders, Finn sort of bracing his other side.

We're halfway up the stairs when we realize just how loud Kurt's boots are on the stairs, but don't have any real choice but to keep going.

"Oh no, it's spinning up here too."

"Shhh…" Finn says, pulling the crown off his arm and setting it on the banister, "You have to be quiet, our parents are sleeping."

"Right…shhh," Kurt agrees. Finn lets go of him and Kurt leans into me, unsteady, but still with his back ramrod straight, as Finn pulls his bedroom door open.

Finn and I pull him inside his room and set him on his bed, which he drops back onto heavily.

"Ow. Studs," Kurt offers muzzily shifting his weight in his jacket, which must be uncomfortable.

"_We_ will get your pajamas," I tell him softly, shooting Finn a look that I hope he understands means 'please don't leave me alone to undress my drunk boyfriend when I am supposed to be on the couch and your father is three doors down the hallway'.

Finn nods, goes to his dresser and pulls out Kurt's completely charming Gene Kelly silk pajamas that I half think Kurt only pretends to wear, like he's got ratty flannels hidden away somewhere that he doesn't want anyone to know about. It's possible that I've spent too much time thinking about what Kurt sleeps in.

Kurt starts a little bit and works himself back up to sitting as Finn settles down on the other side of him on the bed and starts unbuttoning Kurt's perfectly folded pajamas.

"I can't sleep in this, it'll wrinkle," he yawns, attempting to unbutton his jacket and shirt and failing utterly.

"Here. Let me," I murmur, taking his shoulders in my hands and pushing him onto his back as carefully as I can. I unbutton his shirt, subconsciously making little tsking noises that I know I picked up from the time Thad snuck in a bottle of scotch and he and Wes got completely smashed and David and I had to put them to bed before they got expelled.

Finn shoots me a wide eyed sort of look when I pull the shirt open and it takes me a moment to remember the big, (_still_ _purple_ apparently) hickey on Kurt's clavicle that may or may not have something to do with Mr. Hummel working late on Thursday.

"Dude-"

"Not now, Finn," I say, as nicely as I can manage, because seriously? What does he think Kurt and I do? Hold hands and talk about shoes? We lift Kurt back off the bed, get him out of his tux jacket and shirt and into his pajama shirt then lay him back down to button the shirt back up. He groans.

"How are you doing, Kurt?"

He opens his eyes and looks at me like I'm not quite in focus, "Not great."

"Uhhh…" Finn says and we share an awkward glance at Kurt's kilt, which neither of us wants to take off, or know how to take off, and which we obviously can't let him sleep in.

"Kurt, can you stand up?"

"Boots," he mutters.

"Kilt?" I ask.

"It's gotta zipper," he replies, "Under the buckles."

"Okay."

"I've gotta get up."

Finn and I help him up and he fumbles around his waist, trying to grab the ends of the straps which I finally reach for.

"Hey," he says, putting his hand on my chest and holding me back.

"Sorry." I shrink back a little. He totally let me unzip his jeans earlier this week, even if that it didn't really go anywhere. Of course… his brother wasn't there for that.

"I have to take my boots off first, guys," he says, and I realize he's got a point. He lurches forward and we stop him, and both kneel down on either side of him, each taking a boot. Kurt watches us with fond amusement as we fumble with his complicated clothing.

There is a light tapping sensation on my head, and I realize Kurt is patting my hair. I smile up at him.

"I really love these boots," he sighs, his hand sliding from my hair to my cheek and dropping off my face.

Well. It's better than him making fun of my gel again.

"Dude, how do you dance in these, seriously?" Finn marvels, tugging Kurt's left boot off and hefting it up, feeling the weight. I'm with him, no wonder Kurt's got such nice legs.

Okay, I definitely should not have finished his drink.

Kurt falls forward a little bit, and laughs at Finn, a creepy, dead sort of laugh, made creepier by how sudden a change it is, like in the last few seconds he's completely run out of steam and it's the only sound he can think to make.

"Like a Queen, Finn. I dance in these like a Queen," he falls back on the bed, muttering, "fairy, lady boy, queer, fudge packer, faggot."

"Kurt… don't," Finn and I say, nearly at the same time, but he's drunk and he's gone… and he's… he's kept this front up all night, it's just too much to think he can still do it.

"They all hate me," he says, still in that dead tone.

"Come on. Let's just… let's just get you in your pajamas, let's get you to sleep." Even Finn sounds like he's close to tears now and I'm not sure how much longer I'll hold out.

Kurt doesn't resist this time as I unzip the kilt and Finn and I tug it off. After a quick glance at each silently agree to leave the leggings on and just slip his pajama pants on over them. Finn holds him up under the arms while I slip the pants up around his waist and tie them off.

At no point in that last couple months had I thought I would be this proud of myself for getting Kurt _into_ clothes.

"Fuck," Kurt groans, "And Karofsky was right. That _sucks_." He gulps weirdly and Finn's brows knit together.

"What does Karofsky have to do with this?"

I look guilty. I know I look guilty.

"Kurt?" I say warningly. If he lets this secret slip he's going to regret it. Not least of all because Finn will probably flip out and go tell his father right now.

"I don't feel good," Kurt says, doing that gulp again.

"You gonna barf?" Finn asks.

"Yes."

We manhandle him to the bathroom and drop him in front of the toilet. I'm a little surprised when Finn drops down on the other side of him, but I shouldn't be. If anything is a brother moment, this is, and it's sweet the way Finn sets his hand on Kurt's back.

It's officially the worst prom night ever already when the alarm that I set on my phone goes off, denoting the latest that I could have Mr. Hummel call my parents and assure them that I was home and sober and on the couch.

I try to just duck in and out, but the door opens behind me, and Kurt snarls something at Finn and everyone's up.

I realize by the time I convince Mr. Hummel and Carol to go downstairs that wanting to keep Mr. Hummel out of the bathroom is more about me than it is about Kurt. I'm just in "bad things happen to gay guys at dances" mode and it just seems like it won't be as bad for Kurt if his father doesn't _see_ what happened to him. Like it would have been so much easier at Dalton if they hadn't seen bruises. I just want to spare Kurt that.

I start out explaining the way I would explain it to my father. It's not that big a deal, it wasn't that dramatic, I leave out how Kurt looked when they read it off, I leave out the couple cheers and snickers that I think I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear at all… but as I keep going, I realize that talking to Mr. Hummel is different than talking to my father, the same way it was different when I went and gave him my embarrassing, and frankly over rehearsed speech about how if he didn't talk to Kurt no one ever would.

Mr. Hummel is listening, without doing the thing my dad does where you can tell he's braced for the flags in the conversation that he'll have to mentally censor out. Flags exactly like "dinner with" and "Prom at" and "Kurt". So I don't have to do the thing that I've learned to do where I and make sure to not use any other flags for him to block out. Like "gay" or "boyfriend".

Mr. Hummel lets me go back upstairs and I relieve Finn. Kurt's just holding his head and groaning and when I sink back against the wall, he settles back against me.

"I'm really sorry," he says, sounding gruff and low and tired more than anything.

"For what?"

"Pretty much everything."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"I was so stupid to think we could just go and I wanted you to have fun. I wanted a dance we could remember and be happy. And now here we are and everything's awful again and you have to take care of me."

"Okay," I bury my nose in his hair, which sort of smells like strawberries today. Kurt has like a thousand different tubes and bottles and jars of hair product and they all smell different, "One, you don't have to apologize for me taking care of you. I'm your boyfriend, you get to make me take care of you sometimes. You took care of me when I was drunk right?"

"No I was mad at you for kissing Rachel. You kicked me in your sleep and I kicked you back."

"Alright. Well. I probably deserved that," I tell him, though I'm not totally sure I did. "Two, I did have fun." Kurt snorts at me, "Okay… maybe it wasn't a consistent high of awesome over the course of the entire night, but there are _some_ highlights. We got to do the awkward prom picture thing, dinner was great, and we danced. And I freaking killed that song." He snorts at me again, but it's a little less damning this time. "And you are not stupid. You are so brave. All of the time. You are brilliant and talented and incredible and everyone should know that. You were amazing, and I wish I was half as brave as you are."

"Walking onto that dance floor to save the school pariah was pretty brave," Kurt says.

The door slips open and an arm slides in, holding a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water.

"Make sure he takes a couple of these before he goes to sleep," Mr. Hummel tells us. I reach up awkwardly, trying to take hold of them without jostling Kurt too much.

"See what I mean?" I continue, after I hear Mr. Hummel walking back down the hallway "Pariah is like, SAT vocab. Not too shabby for someone who survived letting Puck make them drinks all night." I'm trying too hard to make it okay, but Kurt lets it slide, and he's gotten snarky again, even if it's self-deprecating. Maybe he's feeling a little better.

"You coming out to dance with me almost fixed it," he says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Stay with me tonight," he says quietly.

"I'm supposed to be on the couch. I want your dad to like me."

"He likes you."

"I want to keep it that way."

"You're not the one who's drunk."

"I was last time."

"Please, Blaine."

"Okay."

He relaxes back against my chest a little more and I pour a couple aspirin into my palm and hand him the water. We sit in silence for a little bit, until Kurt starts working his way up to his feet.

"I'm gonna," he extends his index finger and waves it in front of his lips a couple times in a teeth brushing motion.

Kurt's clothes have been picked up and put on a hanger. They're hanging on his closet door, clearly having been made available for immediate entry into Kurt's closet's extremely intimidating categorization and filing system.

What do I normally do in Kurt's room when he leaves? Do I stand around awkwardly waiting for him to come back? Do I sit at his vanity? No, that's categorized as well.

This shouldn't be weird. Nothing's going to happen. He can brush his teeth all he wants, I still watched him throw up all night.

I sit on the edge of his bed, then realizing just how stupid I'm being, I climb fully clothed into Kurt's bed, leaving the lights on.

When he comes in he smiles at me and I smile back and he hits the light switch. I can hear him picking his way across the room and feel the bed sink as he climbs in with me, wrapping an arm around my chest and setting his head on my shoulder.

"This is going to sound stupid," he warns me.

"That's okay."

"I'm glad you came to Prom with me."

I'm not sure how to respond to that, but it doesn't matter, because when I finally open my mouth to just tell him the truth, I'm not sure what to say, he's already asleep.

* * *

><p>Waking up to Mr. Hummel asking us about breakfast isn't quite as scary as I had imagined it would be last night. I must have been a little drunker than I thought, I'm certainly thirsty.<p>

"Your dad found me in your bed again," I groan after he leaves.

"I can't believe me you saw me throw up," Kurt responds.

"If it helps it was mostly Finn with you while you threw up."

Kurt doesn't move from my chest.

"Are you sure you're okay for breakfast?" I ask him.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just need to get dressed."

"For breakfast?"

"I just… I need to get dressed, Blaine. Okay?"

Right, I realize. Somewhere in Kurt's impeccably organized closet he must have the pieces to put together the perfect _ensemble_ for confronting his family the day after a very public humiliation.

"Okay. Do you want me to help?"

"Do you own anything that's not a piped blazer or a cardigan?" Kurt asks, clearly shooting for biting and but falling short.

"T shirts? Jeans?"

"You cannot help me pick out an outfit, Blaine."

"I do own the last few years of vogue and a pretty solid stack of GQ," I wheedle.

"And I own football pads," he replies, finally pulling away from me, "Go ahead. I'll be down."

Kurt shines it on for breakfast and we all go with it. It slips a little when Carol walks into the kitchen in her bathrobe and grips his shoulders for a minute, but it doesn't fall.

I clean up after breakfast. It's weird to shower in Kurt's house. I never really did sleepovers. Even before I came out, people thought I was a little off somehow. I didn't have a lot of friends.

I had originally been planning to just head back to my house after breakfast. I've got a history essay that is basically haunting me, but when I get out of the shower my gel is mysteriously missing and Kurt is suspiciously innocent. Kurt's window is open and the slight breeze is bringing in the smell of flowering trees and the sound of Carol chatting with a neighbor. The drum of voices from ESPN is drifting mutedly up the stairs and Kurt forces me down into his vanity chair and starts rubbing something that looks like whip cream and smells like coconut into my hair.

And I just want to be here today.

"I would have thought that you of all people, Kurt Hummel, would appreciate my attempt at old Hollywood class."

"I do. But time marches on. Just try this," he says.

"Ugh. Only for you," I tell him, loving the way his cheeks go just a little pink. We're sort of side stepping toward the bed when the semi-shut door blows open and Finn half shouts "Door Open!" as he walks past.

"Oh good. I'm glad Finn's attempt to pretend that everything is normal is going to include being pissy about getting grounded for defending Rachel's honor when you got to sleep over."

His little admission that things aren't back to normal yet is the opening I wasn't sure I would take or not. But we've got the rest of the day, and this walled up Kurt worries me.

He lets me ask him about it. Prom. The merits and failings of redemption. I let him ask me about it, and we end up spending most of the afternoon lying on his bed, face to face with his fingers sliding in and out of the interestingly mobile hair on the back of my neck, catching up on the little things that we somehow didn't know about each other yet. He tells me that Puck and Finn used to throw him into dumpsters before they joined Glee, but he wonders sometimes if there was that much malice behind it because Puck tossed everyone in dumpsters and always tried to do it in the mornings rather than the afternoons, when the dumpsters were full of paper towels and empty Windex containers instead of sloppy Joe mix. How Finn would usually hold his coat or bag for him while he got tossed. He tells me about the time he tried to _be_ Finn because he thought that's what his father wanted and how he even made out with Brittany.

I tell him the second half of the Sadie Hawkins story, and the unedited version of my great exodus to the tolerant arms of Dalton Academy. I tell him about Taylor and how I wonder if things would have been different if we had never been friends, because we only had this one thing in common. I tell him about the skinny student teacher in my art class that I'd had such a crush on I had nearly failed the class because I got too flustered to talk or hold pencils or in any way function when I was around him and how if Kurt's going to keep fiddling with my hair like this I might have to consider trying more of this thing he calls "mousse".

There's the sound of a throat being cleared and I pull back and lift my head up enough to see what is clearly Carol's hand sliding a plate of sandwiches into the room from one side of the door.

We get up and clear our throats and eat sandwiches and talk about lighter, pointless things. Top Model, why Katy Perry would ever have married Russell Brand. Kurt models a couple of his potential outfits for Monday for me and we have this very… quiet conversation where we're both allowed to admit that we know the clothes are armor and we get to pick apart the meanings of each of the three options, tossing the quiet blue button down with jeans (I don't want to stick out today) out right away. Then we toss out the hot pink sweater with the coordinating bowler hat that I can't even believe Kurt owns and the Burberry capris that would only work on Kurt (look at all the fucks I do not give). We finally settle on the lilac shirt, white cardigan, orange bowtie and jeans so tight I can't believe they actually fit (oh. I didn't even notice).

"See? I'm not so bad at this," I tell him with a grin, as he hangs the completed outfit up on the closet door.

"If I admit your competence in regard to cardigans do you promise not to hold it over me?" Kurt asks.

"No. Absolutely not. I'm going to periodically text you to remind you that you once told me I was competent in regard to cardigans."

Mr. Hummel yells up to ask if I'm staying for dinner, and as much as I want to I can practically hear the French Revolution hissing threats of academic failure in my ears. I tell Kurt that I have to go home, and thank Mr. Hummel and Carol for letting me stay over. Kurt kisses me goodbye at the door and I drive home.

It's a long enough drive to go back and forth about what I'm going to do when I sit down to dinner that night. To shift between being absolutely committed to just _doing_ it and to dismissing the whole idea as hopeless.

When I get home dinner is just being set on the table. I drop into my seat and have finished filling my entire plate before my mother asks me: "So… how was your… night?"

And I tell them.

And I don't edit anymore than any other kid would. I don't mention that we were drinking or that I didn't sleep on the couch, but I tell them all about how Kurt made his Prom Kilt. How excited he was about the link to Alexander McQueen. I tell them about performing with Tina and Brittany and how different the New Directions are from the Warblers. I tell them what they did to Kurt and how he marched up there and what he said and how we danced. I grab our cheesy Prom picture out of my bag and show them with only slightly trembling hands.

And they listen. My dad is definitely doing the thing where he mentally edits what I'm saying. His eyes widen when he actually sees Kurt. He clears his throat a lot. My mom stares at her plate and pushes her peas back and forth until they're stone cold.

But they listen. They reply. They say things like "Oh that's terrible," and ask "What did he do?"

It's a lot of information to drop on them about a boy that I've only mentioned in passing. But… I feel like I can now. When my dad asks me, a lot like my mom had, "So… Kurt. Is he…"

I say "boyfriend" and I shrug and I help clear the table and my mom hugs me and my dad pats me on the shoulder and I go upstairs and put the picture of Kurt and I up on my desk.

I pull out my books out of my back pack open up to the chapter I'm writing about and then pull out my phone.

To Kurt:

_Remember the time I was competent in regard to cardigans?_

To Blaine:

_Go be competent in regard to the French Revolution, Blaine_

And it's a little like redemption.


	3. Irony and Absolution

Mug. Lid. Lid lid lid lid lid lid. Ahah. Got it. Sugar. Two spoons today. Coffee.

Dammit.

I forgot to come down here and turn on the coffee pot after I got up. I glance at the clock. I was already cutting it close and Santana wanted us to be seen together in our uniforms together, taking Kurt to his first class. It had been underlined on the email she had sent me with my schedule for the week.

"Stupid," I mutter, punching the button on the coffee pot, not sure if I mean Santana, the pot, or myself.

I am so insanely tempted to turn the coffee back off, tell my Dad that I don't feel good, text Santana that she's on her own with the campaign today, and crawl back into bed.

But I cannot blow off this calc test today, I don't have the extra time to schedule a make-up, and I can't think of anything to pretend to be sick with and then pretend to recover from in a couple of hours.

Plus I don't want to face Santana if I miss the first block of her "full security detail" on Kurt and leaving Team Gay together makes me nervous. Cause… he has to know about Santana. I mean…Santana…figured me out. They're all supposed to able to tell right? And even if Kurt doesn't know about Santana… he knows about me, what if he and Santana are good enough friends for him to warn her not to date me cause I'm…

I rub my forehead as the coffee pot finishes dripping through. I don't really think I have to worry about that. I'm… I'm pretty sure that as long as I just don't give him a reason, that Kurt won't say anything. I mean… why now? I'm really trying. How much would he have to gain by doing that?

A lot. He has a lot to gain. He had a lot to gain before he transferred, he had everything to gain when he wanted to transfer back, and he still didn't. He could have said it, right there in the office, either time, but he hadn't.

"Morning, David," my dad says, coming into the kitchen and doing exactly what I did when I got downstairs. He pulls a mug out of the cabinet, then digs around for the matching lid, grabs the sugar and then picks up the now full coffee pot and pours himself a cup.

He looks at me and tsks. "You're too young for coffee," he yawns.

"You say that every week," I yawn back.

"And you're only getting older," he says setting his mug down and getting the cream out of the fridge. "Junior Prom this weekend with your beautiful girlfriend, football champion, starting school clubs," he waves his mug over my stupid red jacket and hat. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of rage fueled haze of crazy Santana must have been in to thinks to herself "Red and shiny, with dorky hats. Neither of us will look gay in that!" I tug at my jacket before adding cream to my own mug and sticking the lid on.

"This is going to look great on your college applications, David. An essay and a recommendation from Figgins and you could probably make up for the whole expulsion issue. I know… it seems like you've hit a little bit of a rough patch this year. I hope you know I'm proud of the way you're bouncing back."

I don't want to talk about my "rough patch". I don't want to talk about pride. I shrug, grab my bag, grab my mug.

"I gotta get to school. Meet Santana."

"Hold onto this girl, David. She's doing you a lot of good."

I give him a smile, easier now after even just a few sips of coffee, grab my keys out of the drawer and head out for school.

_Hang onto this girl, David, she's doing you good._

He's not wrong. Things really have gotten better since I started dating Santana. Acting like I'm dating Santana. Since Santana made me be her boyfriend.

I'm just as tired as before, but not as worried all the time. Mostly. And I do like her. I mean, I'm not stupid, I know that she's using me, and blackmailing me, and that pretty much everything she says to be is bossing me around. "Say this." "Do this." "Wear this stupid hat". But she makes it feel like a relief. It's like football. "Run here. Throw there." It's like the football team "Slushie him. Slushie her." It's like home. "Take this class. Try out for this team. Apply to this college."

Santana bossing me around just makes everything easier. It means there is a whole mess of stuff that I don't have to think about anymore. Like prom. I don't have to worry about finding a girl to take. I don't have to worry about… anything after. I mean, I'd stick out if I didn't go, and I've never had a girlfriend and without Santana, the whole thing would have been way too much. And now? Done. Santana ordered my tux and her corsage. She printed me out and itinerary for the whole week, complete with the times I was supposed to pick up the tux, the corsage, and her from her house, when our reservations at Breadstix were and what table I was supposed to demand. The hotel room she had gotten us. There was even a note about when we would be mentioning this hotel room, "loudly but discreetly" in front of Jacob Ben Israel, and an itemized list of expenses. I was paying for the tux and dinner, she was reimbursing me for the corsage, and we were apparently splitting the hotel room.

I didn't want to think about how many ways my dad would kill me for spending the night at a hotel with a girl, but Santana insisted that if we didn't get caught staying out then the whole thing was a waste, and it was probably easier to face my Dad than to face Santana. It was a very thorough and well thought out plan.

Way better thought out than Santana's Bullywhips thing. She's been out of the Cheerios way too long if she actually believes that protecting nerds, freaks and fa- and everyone on the bottom of the heap is actually going to get the people at this school to vote her prom queen. No one cares about those kids. And using the whole Bullywhips thing to get Hummel back to school? First off- he can't be such a good singer that it was worth all the effort of blackmailing and scheduling and walking around guarding the hallways like this just to get him back on their side for the stupid glee club's competition. And she can't possibly really believe that she is going to get any swagger if the glee club wins some silly competition that no one is even going to see.

When football wins it's an event. People pack the stands, the Cheerios perform. The score goes up on a big board point by point. Everybody sees you. This Glee thing is in a town that none of us here are ever going to see, on the other side of the country.

But she seems to really think that the Bullywhips will work, and that Kurt singing will work and that winning Nationals will work. And she is one of the two people in the world that can destroy my whole life with a word, and she wants me to protect the other.

I take a couple more deep gulps of my coffee, watching the clock on my dashboard and trying to finish it before school because we're not allowed to have it in class, and think to myself: No, actually Santana just wants to give the impression of protecting Kurt. Which is probably the thing that she thought about least when she strong-armed me into this stupid club and when she stepped the whole thing up from just wandering menacingly around the halls to being Kurt's "full security detail."

Now we all stick out. Now we're all targets, and now, if we left Kurt somewhere without one of us looming behind him, he's going to look like an easy shot. And I'm walking proof that you can do _anything_ to Kurt and get away with it.

Both of them…both of them live in this safe little glee bubble. Yeah, they get slushied and they get made fun of and they used to get shoved into lockers (and when football season starts back up, they'll get shoved into lockers again), but… I really think that they don't know what people say about them. Well, Santana probably does, it's mostly basic stuff. She's a bitch. It's not like she doesn't know that. And Kurt's been… Kurt's been called things.

I've called Kurt things.

I've been awful to Kurt.

But, I don't think… he can't wear what he wears to school and talk the way he talks and… be the way he is and actually _know_ the kinds of stuff that people say about him. There's just… no one could do that.

When I meet Santana at my locker, she already looks pissed, but she wipes if off for a second when I walk up to her.

"Morning, David," she says, talking loudly through a big fake smile and leaning in to kiss my cheek, which she telegraphs like crazy. She's all business when she pulls back.

"Okay, so Kurt was supposed to meet me here, but he blew us off and is sitting in History working on something. So, here is your walkie talkie."

"What is this for?"

"To make us look like an organized force," she says. "And to coordinate so that Kurt can't get away from us while we're trying to show people that we're protecting him. Talk loud when you talk into it."

I'm tempted to salute, but I don't want her to think I'm making fun of her.

"Got it."

"You got the copy of Kurt's schedule?"

"Yeah."

"Did you memorize and destroy it?"

"Yes," I tell her, even though I didn't have time to memorize it and I'm pretty sure it's in my car somewhere.

"Great. Now take my arm, walk me to class, and smile."

* * *

><p>"So… answer me this, cause it's a mystery to me," Azimio says, coming up behind me at lunch and startling me out of reviewing my notes as he drops into the next seat at the table, "Your girlfriend has got you walking that queermo around now? What in the hell do you think you're doing?"<p>

I haven't really been hanging around Azimio much since the football championship, I've been working so hard trying to get my grades back up, and I've been working out, I need to make QB next year, I really don't have time for much. And …he's my best friend, but he's… he thinks high school is the only important thing in the world… and yeah- it's really important and it's going to feel like the only thing in the world until we graduate, but I need to go to college. I need to go to a great college and I need to get scholarships to go there so I can get a good job and not be a Lima Loser all my life. Plus if I ever…need to deal with this whole… with the thing that happened with Kurt, I can't do it in Ohio. I need options.

And Azimio… he is the person who is the most likely to convince me to get into trouble again. He's the one who always leads the slushie charge against the Glee kids. What we did to Artie was his idea. He was the one who laughed high fived me when… when I did those things to Kurt. He'd damn near clapped when… when I told him about the thing with the… with the cake topper. How I'd finally… how Hummel had actually looked scared that time. Like we'd, like I'd, just freaked the gay right out of him.

Like I had just scared him too much for him to fight back that time.

I shrug, "Damage control, dude."

"Damage control? Really? Cause you doing plenty of damage to us. _Champions_ can't be walking around with Glee freaks and losers, singing and dancing about being freaks and losers."

I want to lie. I want to say something about Santana, about how I want to "get laid" after prom and how when Azimio is dating "the hottest piece of ass" in this school he can talk to me about damage control with her. I really want to say something about how there are more important things to do than torment half the grade just because we're big enough to.

I almost want to ask him why he actually cares about harassing the glee club, but I know my answer, and it makes me afraid of his.

And I am so tired.

"Look man, I got freaking expelled this year. I need to get into college, and that means," the only expression I can think of is kissing some ass… "that means I have to do things I don't want to. Okay? Just… don't make me stop you."

"Stop me?' he demands.

"I have too much to do to keep you from stealing guys pants, Azimio!" I snap.

Azimio holds his hands up in mock surrender and leaves me alone at my table with my books.

I look up when I'm sure that he's gone and catch a glimpse of red across the cafeteria as Santana drops down to eat with the Glee club. Rachel Berry is hunched over a book too. Kurt is smiling as he sets his head on Mercedes Jones's shoulder. Mike Chang is smiling at his goth girlfriend, who is putting something in his mouth.

I'm so jealous of Mike Chang that it makes me sick. He's on the football team, and he's a good player and he's in Glee club, and Brainiacs and he's dating some totally freaky vampire chick- and he hardly ever catches shit about it. And he doesn't hide any of it, and he doesn't fall for Azimio's crap like I do. I've never seen Mike Chang slushie anyone, I've never seen him get slushied. He just… he just does whatever he wants and gets left alone for it. I'd give anything for that.

He's got an amazing body too.

I push my fingers into my eyes until I see sparks. I need to concentrate. I need an A on this paper and I won't get that if I wait until Sunday to cram the whole thing in.

They've got Redbull in the vending machine in the locker room.

* * *

><p>I wish I'd never let Azimio talk me into anything we had done to Hummel. I wish I'd just spent all of junior high and high school oblivious to him. Acting like he didn't exist. Wishing he didn't exist.<p>

If he hadn't existed, Azimio and the other guys wouldn't have been out to get him. If they hadn't been out to get him, I would never have thought about what he is. If I never thought about what he is, I wouldn't have thought about what I am. I wouldn't have done anything I'd done, I wouldn't have gotten expelled. I wouldn't feel like this all the time. Like I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere.

And then there's part of me that just wants to put my forehead on his knees and cry. Beg him to tell me how he survived this. How he gets out of bed in the morning. How he can possibly flaunt himself all day without freaking out. How he deals with jackasses like me all day and can still have a picture of that pretty boy… of that guy in the jacket from that school in his locker where everyone can see it.

But I can't. Because he's the only person in this school who can help me, and he hates me, which is all on me, and the whole school hates him, and that's on me and Azimio.

I feel weird for being protective of Hummel. Like I feel like I owe him, but I have absolutely zero right to walk around with him.

It's a little like absolution though. Being able to give him a little bit of a break from everything the people in this school have been whispering about him. What's that called … overcompensating?

"Here we are. Third Period. French Class. I'm going to Calculus, so wait inside the classroom after the bell rings until I get back here to walk you to lunch," I repeat what Santana told me to say, but not nearly as loudly as she told me to say it.

"Have you noticed that no one has said boo to me this week?" Hummel asks me.

I almost feel like I can smile. Maybe Santana was right. It's working. "That's cause Bullywhips are protecting you."

"Maybe. But maybe nobody has been harassing me this week because nobody cares."

How? How does he do this? How far into that stupid glee bubble is he? How many stupid things did that gel-head he'd brought here from Homo-Hogwarts tell him?

"You're dreaming."

"Okay, look I'm not saying that everyone in this school is ready to embrace the gay, but maybe at least they've evolved enough to be indifferent."

If I really wanted to protect him, I'd disillusion him. And I'm about to, when he keeps talking.

"I see how miserable you are, Dave. I could just hate you when you were bullying me, but now all see is your pain. And you don't have to torture yourself over this. I'm not saying you should come out tomorrow, but maybe soon, the moment will arise when you can."

I've got to get to calculus. I can't do this out here. I don't talk about this. I can't let him… I can't let him talk to me like this. Like he cares. It's like football, if you get hit and just try to walk it off, it doesn't hurt as much, it's only when they pull you off the field and you have to concentrate on it that it hurts. I can't let Kurt care, it's too much.

"What's wrong?"

It's the way he says it that gets me. He almost sounds like my mom, and it breaks me.

"I'm so…" Scared. Lost. Desperate.

Tired.

I could tell him.

If I ever really wanted to… to have this conversation with him, to let him help me…I could have that now. He… this poor tiny little thing that I've been torturing for years…. he'd… I can't ask him for that though. I can't. Not after…

"I'm so freaking sorry, Kurt. I'm just so sorry for what I did to you."

"I know. I know."

_Stay on the field, Karofsky. Stay on the field everyone's watching._

"Cool. Thanks," I tell him, pulling myself back together before anyone sees us. Before Azimio appears out of nowhere and I get myself on the piss balloons, slushie target, port-a-potty-lockdown list. Before I look like I can't protect him and let someone pop his stupid bubble.

"Remember. You wait for me here, alright?"

I take off before he tries to say anything else to me. Before anyone sees us talking and thinks that I'm protecting him for any reason other than trying to get the beautiful and victoriously promiscuous Santana Lopez to fuck me.

I get most of the way to Calc before I realize that I'm not going to be able to hold myself together for the rest of the day. Not after that. Not with having to do the whole Prom dog and pony show tomorrow.

But I've got a test in Biology. I've got a paper to hand in for History. I'm still just hovering right below where my GPA was before this whole… before I started to think… before… before I realized I was gay and started taking it out on Kurt Hummel for absolutely no reason other than he was there.

I go to Calc, but excuse myself to go to the restroom after a couple minutes, then just stand at the sink splashing cold water on my face.

* * *

><p>Prom is more fun than I was expecting it to be. Getting pictures taken over at Santana's is sort of fun. My parents can't stop commenting on how pretty Santana is when I bring her back to my house for pictures, which I enjoy on some weird level I don't want to think about.<p>

We go to Breadstix, and sit far away from Rachel, Sam and Mercedes. Finn barely looks at me when he and Quinn walk in, which is better than it could have been.

With all of our campaigning out of the way, no security detail to organize, and doing pretty much the straightest thing we could be doing on this particular Saturday, Santana and I actually have a conversation instead of a war room session. It turns out that we like some of the same music and movies and we talk about that and we laugh and she makes me hold her hand on the table for a little while. That's what a real date is supposed to be like, right?

Even the dance is fun. Santana and I move between the dance floor and the buffet table, dancing for a while, hovering for a while. She seems to be enjoying herself, at least until we're out on the floor for a slow dance and she suddenly just deflates in my arms.

"You okay?"

"What?" she asks, snapping her eyes up to me, her body stiffening back up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"No reason. Sorry."

But then she turns me, forcefully and pretty far off the beat, so that we're facing opposite directions, and sets her head on my shoulder. Behind her, looking kind of adorable in her bright green dress and her tiny little hat, Brittany Pierce is dancing with some chick.

Oh.

I set my hand on her back, rubbing it a little bit. Her head snaps back up.

"Don't wrinkle the dress," she hisses. "Come on, head in the game!"

"Sorry."

We continue to turn and I catch sight of Kurt.

"Wait… Hummel came to Prom?"

"Yeah," Santana says, rolling her eyes in that way she does, where it looks like her face isn't big enough to contain her disdain for you. "That's why we stepped up his security detail, remember? It was in the email."

"I missed that part. Why would he come to Prom?"

"Because he has a date?"

"What?"

"He brought his boyfriend. That's why we've been walking him everywhere all week."

And I see him too. The kid Kurt had been with at whatever glee club thing Azimio had been heckling a couple weeks ago. The kid in the picture in his locker. The other person who knows about me. The kid that had shoved me back.

"Why aren't we his security detail now?" I demand. Actually bringing a guy to Prom is way worse than walking around by himself in his stupid clothes.

"Because there are chaperones everywhere, including Coach Sylvester at her most paranoid," Santana sighs. "He's fine. He was stage one of the plan. Stage two is looking like a happy couple, so smile."

I plaster on a totally fake grin and run over what I would have done a couple months ago if I'd seen Hummel at Prom. _With a guy._ I think I might have actually hurt him. God, I hope I wouldn't have actually hurt him. I scope out the room as Santana continues to spin me. I'm the proof that you can hurt him and get away with it, I'm the one who has spent the entire week spelling out exactly when he's protected and when he's vulnerable all week. He doesn't hate me, he should but he doesn't. I feel like… I feel like he's kind of my responsibility.

But as Santana and I turn I see Finn. He's pretty obviously keeping an eye on Kurt as Kurt spins in front of… is that a skirt? Dammit Hummel!

And Sam is kind off to the other side, also with an eye out. A little ways away Puck's got his arm around the… Kurt's boyf- date. Kurt's date. And Sylvester is staring at Puck like she could burn holes in him if she tried hard enough.

Okay. Maybe Santana's right. Maybe he's fine.

I still check to make sure I can see him when a fight breaks out during his date's song. But he seems fine.

What if Kurt was right? Sam, Finn, Mike and Puck are all big guys, and they aren't exactly being subtle about the way one of them is always planted somewhere near Kurt, but they're still just glee guys. They don't have the reputation it takes to keep him safe. That's why Santana and I have been doing it. And Sam's an animal when he's mad, but it would only take a couple of guys to take him down.

But everyone's dancing. No one's even looking at him. Or his skirt. I can't help but wonder if part of that is that a couple of the football guys didn't have dates. Azimio's at home. Strando's at home.

I want to be at home too. But I don't get to go home until tomorrow morning. God, I hope Santana doesn't snore.

We go back and forth between the dance floor and the buffet table a few more times before Figgins finally walks onstage and takes the mic and calls the candidates up. I slap Santana on the back and she glares at me. Oops. Right. Not really a dating-this-girl gesture.

Getting elected King is… it's exciting. Kind of a relief until it sinks in. Santana will be happy, my Dad will be proud. My reputation is obviously fully intact. But then again… my reputation is obviously fully intact. And my reputation's been nothing but a burden all year.

Maybe if Santana wins Queen I can at least convince her to pay for her share at Breadstix. I mean, she did order the shrimp.

And then I hear the words "write in votes". Well, there goes making Santana happy.

Then the words "Kurt Hummel".

I feel someone dumped ice over me.

I didn't know about this. And if… if anyone should have… why didn't I know?

Because maybe my reputation isn't intact. Because maybe walking Hummel around all week… because maybe crying in a hallway… because maybe…

Or because being like Kurt makes you a Queen, but threatening someone like Kurt, hurting someone like Kurt… like Kurt and I… makes you a King.

What's that called… irony?

It's awful whatever it is.

Figgins points me toward the thrones off to the side, and somewhere in the haze I'm impressed with myself for making it down there without my legs going out from under me. I sink down into the throne once I get down there. Not sure what to do. The music doesn't start back up. The gym is eerily quiet for a couple minutes. It's weird. People aren't shouting, like they're proud of themselves, but they don't seem sad about it. I hear Jacob Ben Israel make some sort of cut off yelp noise and look over to see Puck holding him up against a wall while his girlfriend goes through his pockets. A little bit of chatter starts back up, buzzing in my ears, then silence spreads back out and I see Kurt walk up onto the stage. Figgins grimly sets the crown on Kurt's head, hands him the scepter.

Kurt looks pretty much how I feel. But he's back on the field. He stares down _the entire school_ for a minute, then smiles.

"Eat your heart out Kate Middleton."

There's silence for a minute. Then Rachel Berry starts jumping and cheering, then Mike Chang's girlfriend. Then the rest of those fucking sheep that for some reason I'm so afraid of follow them.

And Figgins announces the King and Queen dance.

Right.

And he's standing up there alone. And he's standing up there vulnerable. And _I owe him_.

I make it up to the stage and we walk down, and I remind myself that it doesn't mean anything. I've been walking around with him all week. It doesn't look different this time.

"Now's your chance," he says.

"What?"

"Come out. Make a difference."

I feel my heart stop beating. I feel every pair of eyes in the room drilling into me. I owe him this. After everything. I owe him. If I could do this… he wouldn't be the only one.

They'd all hate me too.

"I can't."

And I bolt. Off of the floor, out of the gym. All the way to my car. And I just sit there. Frozen. Wondering just how much a person can forgive another person before they can't anymore. Wondering just how much shit a person is willing to take before they take someone down with them. Hoping it's just a little bit more.

I jump when the passenger door opens, and Santana climbs in.

"Listen up cave man brow," she snarls, "This is your one and only chance. Were you behind what happened to Kurt?"

"No!"

"Because if you tell me that you were, right now, I will quietly end our little partnership, and no one has to find out the truth about you. But I swear to god if I find out later that you had anything- absolutely anything to do with this- not only will I end you, but I will have the truth about you leaked absolutely everywhere. People who have never met you will be saying "Oh right. David Karofsky- the big gay football player. The big, _dead_, gay football player buried in a shallow grave in Lima Heights" got me?"

"I swear. I didn't know anything. I swear."

"Fine."

She relaxes, sinking back into her seat.

"Are we still going to the hotel?" I ask, since she hasn't told me what to do yet.

"I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"About whether or not I want the glee club to think I slept with you, okay?"

"I can't believe you gave up Cheerios for Glee Club," I tell her. It might be the only honest thing I've ever told my dear girlfriend.

"Yeah, well Mr. Shuester never tries to shoot us out of cannons. You can't be popular if you're dead."

"I kind of hate being popular," I admit to her.

"Yeah. It did kind of suck," she says. She reaches across me, turns the key in the ignition, and turns on the radio. We listen to it for a little while.

"We're going to the hotel."

I don't resist, I just drive. Santana makes me carry her bag, she check us in, winking widely to the middle aged woman behind the counter. She changes in the bathroom, I change in the room. I'm under the covers by the time she gets out of the bathroom, and I'm asleep before she even gets across the room.


End file.
